Starbucks is one of life’s necessities that often kickstarts your day. Starbucks outlets are located everywhere and when you’re on a mission somewhere or off to work they are perfect to grab your favourite coffee as they offer fast, efficient service with a smile, not to mention fantastic taste!
As keen green travelers, it is great to know that even your coffee can be green. I would like to shed some light on this fantastic company and share some of their innovative green initiatives.
Starbucks believes that “businesses can – and should – have a positive impact on the communities they serve.”
Since Starbucks opened their first store in 1971, they have dedicated themselves to earning the trust and respect of their customers, partners and neighbors. How? By being responsible in the following areas:
Community
As good neighbors they get involved with local efforts to bring people together and create positive change whenever they can.
Environment
They’re finding ways to minimize their environmental footprint, tackle climate change, and inspire others to do the same.
Ethical Sourcing
Starbucks Coffee Company is committed to buying and serving the highest-quality, responsibly grown, ethically traded coffee to help create a better future for farmers.
Wellness
Their dedication to wellness means supporting policies and efforts to improve the health of our communities in addition to offering balanced food and beverage options to their customers.
Diversity
By welcoming a diversity of people and ideas to their business, they create more opportunities for learning and success that benefit customers, partners (employees) and suppliers.
The innovative green coffee company offers others the choice to make a difference as well. They have many green projects on the go including a massive recycling movement.
“Join the movement. Bring a reusable travel mug and get a 10 cent discount on any Starbucks beverage, anytime.”
“One person can save trees, together we can save forests.”
For the good of the planet, Starbucks is encouraging everyone to switch from paper cups to reusable travel mugs. One day in March thousands of New Yorkers made the switch. Join them now by taking a pledge to do the same.
Starbucks passion for reducing cup waste did not start with the Green Project. Since 1985, they have offered a discount to customers who bring in a reusable travel mug and will continue doing so. This is just one of the ways they are fulfilling their commitment to environmental stewardship while they work towards a long-term goal of 100% reusable or recyclable cups by 2015. To learn more, visit their Starbucks Shared Planet goals and progress.
One of the significant challenges Starbucks is facing is a wide variance in municipal recycling capabilities. This inconsistency makes it difficult for a company like theirs, with more than 16,000 retail locations around the globe, to efficiently and effectively implement a recycling strategy. In order to achieve greater scalability and standardization, they set a goal in 2008 to develop a comprehensive recyclable cup solution by 2012. Ultimately, they would like their paper and plastic cups – which in the U.S. account for approximately 95 percent of their in-store beverage packaging – to be universally recyclable in form and in practice.
When Starbucks initially delved into this issue, they believed making their cups from alternative materials was the key to broader acceptance into the recycling stream. In May 2009 they hosted a cup summit, convening local municipalities, raw materials suppliers, cup manufacturers, retail and beverage partners, recyclers, NGOs, and academic experts for the first time. Employing systems thinking, a problem-solving approach that analyzes how the various segments of a structure are interconnected, they addressed recycling challenges with a view of the entire value chain.
This dialogue revealed a fundamental need to improve recycling infrastructures while continuing to explore materials and design. The result has been enhanced collaboration and meaningful action, including innovative testing. One such example is a pilot program sponsored by Global Green USA’s Coalition for Resource Recovery to test the recyclability of their paper cups with old corrugated cardboard, the most extensively recycled material in the U.S.
In 2009 approximately 70 percent (2,163) of their company-owned stores in North America that control their own waste collection recycled items made from one or more materials; however, these were typically back-of-store items that are widely accepted for recycling, such as cardboard boxes. Among remaining retail locations in North America, the majority were limited by operational impasses, such as minimal store space or lack of commercial recycling services.
Although many of Starbucks customers order their beverages “to go,” front-of-store recycling is an important part of their effort to develop a comprehensive recyclable cup solution. In 2008 we set a goal to implement front-of-store recycling in all company-owned stores by 2015. While they made only slight progress toward this target in 2009, with bins present in roughly 5 percent (399) of their company-owned stores in North America, they believe they’re taking the right steps to drive change in the near term.
The use of post-consumer recycled fiber (PCF) in their cups and other packaging also continues to be a priority for them, as it has been since 2006 when they launched the industry’s first paper beverage cup containing PCF. Over time, this effort has enabled them to conserve more than 60,000 tons of virgin wood fiber, the equivalent of more than 422,000 trees.
In addition, Starbucks is asking its partners (employees) and customers to join forces with them. Their goal is to serve 25 percent of the beverages made in their stores in reusable serveware or tumblers by 2015. In 2009 customers brought their own tumblers into stores more than 26 million times. Although serveware and tumbler use accounted for only 1.5 percent of total beverages served last year, this simple shift in behavior kept nearly 1.2 million pounds of paper out of landfills. One of the ways they’re rewarding customers for tumbler use is by offering a beverage discount, as they’ve done since 1985. They’re looking forward to increasing serveware and tumbler use in the future.
So when you are out and about and need a little pick-me-up, Starbucks will aid your green journey. You can rest assure that Starbucks is actively facing and combating their carbon emissions and continuously finding new and innovative ways to preserve our planet. Help Starbucks’ mission to reuse and recycle by filling up on coffee with your reusable container.
Source: Starbucks Coffee Company
